USAF Tanker Deal "To be reviewed"

[Steel_Tomb]

Well this gets better by the second, as if it wasn't controversial enough the deal supposedly has "significant errors" and is being put forward for review. It was a big surprise when the result was annouced, I wonder what people will think of this turn of events.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/2008061...s-8cc5291.html

[Tchocky]

Hmm, I wonder how this one will pan out.

On paper the A330 seems to be the better aircraft. Sydney Camm said that every aircraft has 4 dimensions; length, breadth, height and politics.

[SUBMAN1]

Told you a long time ago how this was going to play out. Everyone shot me down back then.

Besides, EADS has no experience trying to build a tanker in the first place. Guaranteed to be hit with costs overruns, the works!

Couple that to Boeing's version is pretty much built and ready to go. It is being procured by Japan as we speak.

Its just dumb to go with the EADS version. Besides, it costs more to operate, regardless if it holds little more fuel, and it has no real defenses when the Boeing version does! That is another sticking point that Boeing has brought up. The EADS version is a sitting duck!

Better on paper? hardly.

-S

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

Besides, EADS has no experience trying to build a tanker in the first place.

I guess the German and Canadian tankers don't count, then? EADS have been building tankers for a while.

Couple that to Boeing's version is pretty much built and ready to go. It is being procured by Japan as we speak.

Japan and Italy are buying the KC-767, the A330 MRTT is being purchased by Australia, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and UK. The Boeing model is further along in flight testing than the A330.

Its just dumb to go with the EADS version. Besides, it costs more to operate, regardless if it holds little more fuel, and it has no real defenses when the Boeing version does! That is another sticking point that Boeing has brought up. The EADS version is a sitting duck!

Can you link to the defences, I can't find anything.
More than a little more fuel, 27% more.

[Skybird]

Wasn't it to be expected that Boeing would try to raise support for putting the deal into question? I for sure expected it, and if the deal would have gone to Boeing in the first, the same concerns that are being referred to now wouldn't have made anyone raising a single eyebrow. For Boeing it is about money lost, for the rest it is about national pride. Rational arguments or the given or lacking quality of the Airbus have nothing to do with it. I'm sure that it will end up with the deal being given to Boeing, no matter how. as Tchocky said: politics.

Man, this real time typo- and spellchecking of Firefox works fantastic! Tchocky, you spell your name wrong, it says!

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Wasn't it to be expected that Boeing would try to raise support for putting the deal into question? I for sure expected it, and if the deal would have gone to Boeing in the first, the same concerns that are being referred to now wouldn't have made anyone raising a single eyebrow. For Boeing it is about money lost, for the rest it is about national pride. Rational arguments or the given or lacking quality of the Airbus have nothing to do with it. I'm sure that it will end up with the deal being given to Boeing, no matter how. as Tchocky said: politics.

Man, this real time typo- and spellchecking of Firefox works fantastic! Tchocky, you spell your name wrong, it says!

You are right about the politics - I think the deal awarded to EADS was a black eye for Boeing from screwing around with the first deal! EADS would never have been in the picture if Boeing didn't rig the first award in 2003.

It is totally political.

-S

[rifleman13]

If the deal with EADS comes through, it will be like the A380 all over again.

[SUBMAN1]

Boeing today said the U.S. Air Force’s decision to award a contract for the next aerial refueling airplane to the team of Northrop Grumman and the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) is at odds with the fact that the Northrop/EADS team’s KC-30 is less survivable and more vulnerable to attack than the Boeing KC-767 Advanced Tanker. The Air Force evaluation cited the Boeing offering to be more advantageous in the critical area of survivability. The evaluators found the KC-767 tanker had almost five times as many survivability discriminators as its competitor. Speaking this week at the Aerial Refueling Systems Advisory Group (ARSAG) Conference in Orlando, Fla., former U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff and retired Gen. Ronald Fogleman stressed that survivability greatly enhances the operational utility of a tanker. “When I saw the Air Force’s assessment of both candidate aircraft in the survivability area, I was struck by the fact that they clearly saw the KC-767 as a more survivable tanker,” Fogleman told the ARSAG audience in his role as a consultant to Boeing’s tanker effort. “To be survivable, tanker aircraft must contain systems to identify and defeat threats, provide improved situational awareness to the aircrew to avoid threat areas, and protect the crew in the event of attack. The KC-767 has a superior survivability rating and will have greater operational utility to the joint commander and provide better protection to aircrews that must face real-world threats.”

That pretty much explains it all.

Why is it that I'm always called upon to provide sources, yet other people never provide anything, yet these same people make claims of their own constantly? Crud!

Anyway, read it all here - http://www.reuters.com/article/press...08+PRN20080411

-S

PS. Some additional data:

-- More robust surface-to-air missile defense systems
-- Cockpit displays that improve situational awareness to enable flight
crews to better see and assess the threat environment
-- Better Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) hardening -- the KC-767 is better
able to operate in an EMP environment compared with the KC-30
-- Automatic route planning/rerouting and steering cues to the flight crew
to avoid threats once they are detected
-- Better armor-protection features for the flight crew and critical
aircraft systems
-- Better fuel-tank-explosion protection features.

PPS. All these things add up to less fuel carried. Hence the 330's fuel advantage.